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Gatorland launched its newest zip line, Gator Gauntlet, in February 2016 an attraction accessible to park guests with mobility challenges and other disabilities. The wheelchair-accessible ride goes down a 350-foot wire and over the park and, yes, alligators. (Red Huber)
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For two decades, Wheeler Clemons has spent days in a wheelchair. On Friday morning, he was lifted from the chair to fly — wide-eyed and yelling "Woo-hoo" — over a marsh populated with more than 100 watchful alligators.
Clemons was the first official participant on the Gator Gauntlet, a specially designed, disability-enabled zip line at Gatorland, longtime animal attraction in south Orlando.
"It was a feeling that I haven't felt in a while — the adrenaline rush and the thrill," said Clemons, 41, who was a surfer before having a spinal-cord injury. "I didn't think it was going to go that fast. I was flying."
The making of a zip line suitable for people with mobility challenges has been in the works since the construction of the park's original Screamin' Gator Zip Line in 2011, said Mark McHugh, president and CEO of Gatorland.
Accessible zips are "very rare," McHugh said, so the Gatorland staff had to explore several options to make the project work.
"We spent about a year trying to retrofit our current towers with an elevator and some way to add that accessibility to our current zip line," he said. "We just couldn't safely do that. The size of the towers couldn't safely handle that."
That plan was scratched, along with a notion that folks might zip over the breeding marsh while still in their wheelchairs.
Instead, Gauntlet participants transfer into the attraction's wheelchairs and harnesses at an on-ground location before traveling up ramps to the top of the tower. Up there, the harnesses, which are designed to provide upper-body support, are attached to the 350-foot-long wire and an electric hoist lifts riders out of the chair and into zipping position.
At the end of the line, that process is reversed, and riders are returned to their own wheelchairs.
The Gauntlet runs beneath one of the Screamin' Gator segments, and it comes closer to the water than the original zip attraction. Fencing near the landing keeps the reptiles away from dangling riders.
Construction on the Gauntlet, which operates separately from the Screamin' Gator, was finished in late 2014, McHugh said. He estimated its cost at $500,000.
"We've spent the last year developing the methods and the equipment and the operating procedures on how to safely get people out of wheelchairs, the type of harness design to get them on the line safely and get them off," he said.
Gatorland consulted with medical experts, therapists, folks in Colorado who snow ski despite paralysis and others, McHugh said. It also worked with the Florida Disabled Outdoors Association and others, McHugh said.
"What we're trying to is basically just provide opportunities for people with disabilities to participate. In our world of recreation, it's very difficult many times to do that," said David Jones, CEO of the Tallahassee-based FDOA, a nonprofit organization.
Clemons, who lives in Flagler County, was joined on the Gator Gauntlet by his wife Annette and daughters Madison and Georgia. His family used standard equipment on the same zip line that he rode, one right after the other.
Gatorland is charging $15 to attempt the Gator Gauntlet in February, McHugh said. The price will be between $20 and $25 after that, he said. Reservations can be made at 407-855-5496.
The park has been allowing select visitors onto the new zip line in recent weeks. One British family with three sons, one in a wheelchair, were invited to try it, McHugh said. The son with a disability coasted in for a landing, pumping his fist with excitement, he said.
"It's touching their lives like we never imagined … because they've been told they can't do these things, but when they can, it's awesome to see," McHugh said.
Copyright © 2016, Orlando Sentinel
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